Archive for the ‘shane victorino’ tag

(Standard disclaimer; this is ranting about my fake baseball team. If you don’t play fantasy, might as well skip this).

I’m really beginning to question my abilities in fantasy sports. Despite being deep into baseball and knowing random things off the top of my head that should be of use in fantasy (which managers are more inclined to do closer by committee, which ball parks are skewed offensively and thus players who play there may be at an advantage), I struggle year after year.

This year, thanks to an unfortunately timed meltdown (I lost a week 0-10-2 after having been ahead early in the week), I dropped just out of the playoff spots in my league (top 6 make the playoffs out of a 12 team league). But the ills of my team were seen early. Once again, I was plagued by under performing players and a poor draft that left me churning the waiver wire. By the end of the season I had made 58 of the 65 allotted moves in a failed attempt to improve enough to sneak into the playoffs (where honestly, I would have been a tough out; I can grind out 6-5-1 wins with the best of them).

So, what happened? Here’s a link to the post talking about my initially drafted team. And here’s a matrix of my 21 initially drafted players, their performance on the year and a note indicating whether or not they over- or under-achieved (bold means on the team at year’s end, red = badly under performed, green = greatly over-performed).

Player

round Drafted/# Drafted overall

Yahoo o-rank 2013

Yahoo O-rank 2014

ADP at time of draft

2014 Perf Rank

Adam Jones-OF

1st round (#10 overall)

7

13

10th/11.4

21

Adrian Beltre-3B

2nd round (#15)

15

12

13th/13.2

46

Alex Rios-OF

3rd round (#34)

25

44

34th/35

179

Giancarlo Stanton-OF

4th round (#39)

222

26

24th/27.8

5

Kenly Janssen-RP

5th round (#58)

52

48

49th/53.2

102

Greg Holland-RP

6th round (#63)

36

63

62nd/62

60

Mark Trumbo-1B/OF

7th round (#82)

66

78

53rd/56.0

944

Carlos Santana-C/1B

8th round (#87)

134

87

69th/74.0

159

Shelby Miller-SP

9th round (#106)

76

88

110th/113.0

485

Hyung-Jin Ryu-SP

10th round (#111)

85

101

124th/127.2

95

Aaron Hill-2B

11th round (#130)

402

111

124th/115.8

364

Danny Salazar-SP

12th round (#135)

336

96

154th/150.4

355

Tony Cingrani-SP

13th round (#154)

152

133

156th/156.8

941

Jim Henderson-RP

14th round (#159)

130

155

170th/175.0

750

Shane Victorino-OF

15th round (#178)

67

113

125th/129.0

1144

Chris Archer-SP

16th round (#183)

175

171

208th/209.0

314

Asdrubal Cabrera-SS

17th round (#202)

267

151

171st/177.4

177

J.J. Hoover-RP

18th round (#207)

237

629

344th

922

Tim Hudson-SP

19th round (#226)

299

300

311th

171

Brandon Belt-1B

20th round (#231)

106

104

142th

988

Jake Odorizzi-SP

21st round (#250)

548

358

445th

197

So, what happened?

My first two picks didn’t underperform “badly,” but were not the super stars you need to take hold of a league. I didn’t really like Adam Jones or Adrian Beltre at the draft, and despite some hot streaks they’ve been disappointments. Beltre got hurt in camp and missed games at the beginning of the season. My #3 pick Alex Rios I finally gave up on and waived; his seasonal rank of 179 belies what he’s done the last two months (closer to the 900 ranked range). It’s never a good sign when your #3 pick gets waived thanks to performance (and not injury) reasons.

Giancarlo Stanton is my one major “win” out of the draft; a 4th round pick who likely will finish in the top 5 of stats on the season. At the time of this writing, he was trailing only Mike Trout in terms of fantasy rankings for offensive players. He single-handedly carried my team offensively for weeks on end and is a large reason that my team offense was 1st in homers and 3rd in RBI. I feel vindicated here: I suffered through at least two injury-riddled Stanton seasons in the past after having drafted him highly, and he’ll have the same issue next year; he’ll likely be a top-5 pick with a huge injury risk on his head.

My two big-time closers did not disappoint: both Janssen and Holland performed as expected and led me to be 5th in team saves and have a 14-7-1 record in the category on the year. This is a big lesson learned for me; you can get by with just two big-time closers and be successful in this category. Of course, I wanted more closers but got unlucky; my #3 closer Jim Henderson suddenly and without warning was yanked from the role on opening day. Another team vultured his replacement (Francisco “K-rod” Rodriguez); all he’s done is pitch lights out all year and is 6th in the league in saves. That should have been my 3rd closer. That was a disappointment. I tried just one waiver-wire closer grab (Chad Qualls for Houston) and despite picking correctly, Qualls went weeks without save opportunities so I dumped him after two weeks looking for more starter quality.

Lets talk about the god-awful positional player issues I had in the draft: Mark Trumbo started out white-hot, fractured his foot and missed months. Aaron Hill did not come closer to living up to the hype of fantasy analysts. Shane Victorino was on and off the D/L all year. And poor Brandon Belt fractured his thumb, fought his way back and then got hit in the head during BP and still remains on the concussion D/L.

Of the Starting Pitchers I gambled on: Shelby Miller struggled all year, Danny Salazar got demoted, as did Tony Cingrani. Chris Archer did not produce at fantasy levels and Jake Odorizzi struggled early and was dropped (I eventually picked him back up). I only kept two drafted starters on the team all year (Ryu and Hudson) and frankly Hudson was so bad for so long that I came pretty close to dumping him. That basically means that my “wait on starters” strategy was a complete failure, if I’m only keeping ONE decent starter the whole year.

So, for the 2nd straight year I cycled the waiver wires. Here’s some of the guys I went through:

Scheppers I took a gamble on b/c his numbers were so good as a reliever; mistake. He got shelled opening day and soon was on the D/L. A number of these pitchers were decent moves and pitched well for a while (especially Josh Beckett and Marcus Strohman). The biggest failure here was dumping Corey Kluber after he got hit hard opening day: He’s turned into the 16th best fantasy performer all year, a 2nd round talent. That was a huge mistake. I liked Eovaldi‘s peripherals (lots of Ks) but he struggled with runners and his ERA/WHIP were inflated all year. Skaggs got hurt, Kennedy was ineffective. I got great value for a while out of Keuchel, but after a good mid-summer he tailed off badly. Garcia made like one start before returning to the D/L. Josh Beckett was a great waiver wire pickup for a while, but he too got hurt and remains on the D/L today. Alex Wood was a great find. I snaked Gerrit Cole off the D/L just before he came back on but he contributed little. Most of my other experiments were far too inconsistent week-to-week to trust (see Trevor Bauer, Despaigne, Mike Leake, etc).

As mentioned before, I only tried to gamble on one closer waiver wire pickup thanks to the solid two starters that I had from draft day. Most of the available closers on the waiver wire were in committee situations and couldn’t be trusted anyway.

I worked 1B, 2B, and 3B hard. At one point I was trying to engineer a 3B trade, having Seager while he was hot and Arenado after he came off the D/L. But my potential trade partners badly low-balled me for Beltre (offering guys who were worth far less than Beltre was) and suddenly Seager dropped off a cliff, making his trade value useless. Eventually I dumped both.

1B pickups Napoli, Duda and especially Carter turned out to be huge winners. Once again proving my point that some positions are just so deep they’re not worth drafting. Same with outfielders to a certain extent; I had Ozuna all year and he’s turned out to be well worth it.

My season’s end Fantasy team after all this waiver wire churning. Bold are original, red are waiver wire:

You only need two big-time closers to compete. Spend draft picks in the 5th and 6th rounds, try to get a third closer later on and you’ll do fine. You must do a better job on the waiver wire though trying to grab closers if you want them.

There’s always 1B talent on waivers. Do not over-spend on 1B.

My strategy of over-loading on mediocre starters just doesn’t seem to be working. I was 3rd in wins and 5th in Ks, but 8th in ERA, dead last in losses and 11th in whip. Meanwhile the #1 team this year went with an uber-pitching strategy (over-drafting starters and ending up with Kershaw, Sale, Felix Hernandez as well as several top closers) and he just dominated pitching. Despite having a ton of starters, he managed to be 4th in Wins AND be 2nd in Whip. I think he’s got a good strategy. And i’m sure people will try to emulate it next year.

Do not sweat churning and burning waiver wire picks early on; you may just end up with a monster surprise player on the year. This was the 1st place team’s strategy and it netted him Charlie Blackmon and a couple of extra closers. Two of the top 10 starters on the year were waiver wire guys: CoreyKluber and Garrett Richard.

Do not hesitate grabbing big-name call-ups. I missed out on more than a couple guys that I would have grabbed but hesitated. This cost me last year with Yasiel Puig and it cost me this year with Jorge Soler and George Springer. I waited, and I missed out.

In the wake of several posts I’ve seen on the topic of Qualifying Offers (one long-winded piece from the long-winded windbag Murray Chasshere, accusing the owners of collusion in the cases of Stephen Drew and Kendrys Morales instead of just understanding the state of the game, another from the more reasonable Jayson Starkhere, talking about some potential fixes, and their respective agent Scott Boras whining about anonymous executive quotes in an ESPN article here), I thought I’d do some quantitiative-summary analysis of the Q.O. so far.

I think its fairly inarguable to state that the system isn’t really working how the players envisioned; especially as two decent FAs still sit un-signed. Clearly the players union did not realize just how much teams are valuing draft picks, to the point where they’d rather keep a mid-first rounder than sign a decent middle-aged free agent. I also believe that several of the players this past off-season got *really* bad advice on the state of the market for their services, and wholy deserve their fates. Baseball is changing; we’re seeing metrics highlighting the value of defense, we’re seeing positional flexibility win out over inflexibility, and we’re seeing teams go with youth over veterans even when the cost difference is rather negligible. That middle-aged, defensively challenged free agents (especially Morales) didn’t see this is entirely on them. The situation is even worse for players of advancing years, who are not even getting contract offers after decent seasons and are being forced into early retirement in some cases.

Arguably, 3 of the 8 players in question were never going to be affected by the Q.O. (Hamilton and Upton because of the known long-term deals they were going to get, and Kuroda for being nearly guaranteed to return to the Yankees). So, by my way of thinking 4 of the remaining 5 players in the 2012 FA class had their earnings either curtailed or affected by the presence of the Q.O.:

Michael Bourn got a longer deal with more guaranteed money, but he got less in AAV than the Q.O. he turned down, so perhaps my view is arguable that he was affected.

Rafael Soriano languished on the FA market until the Nats suprisingly signed him; his AAV in “real” dollars was significantly less in its estimate per year than the Q.O. he turned down (most estimates i’ve seen are at $11M/year with all the deferred money in his deal). I hope Soriano keeps sending his agent Xmas cards; clearly Boras pulled a rabbit out of a hat to get him signed here.

Adam LaRoche saw very little interest in his services and returned to the Nats on a discounted deal; meanwhile players with comparable skills but without compensation issues earned more years and more dollars. Shane Victorino; 3yrs/$39M as an example.

Kyle Lohse probably suffered the worst fate; he didn’t sign until a week before the season and for more than a 15% discount per year. Meanwhile lesser pitcher Edwin Jackson got 4yrs/$52M by way of comparison, without a Q.O. attached to him.

Now here’s the same information for the thirteen players who dealt with (or who are dealing with) the issue after the 2013 season:

Year

Player

Old Team

New Team

Draft Pick Forfeited

Signing Date

Subsequent contract (w/o options)

Money up/down per AAV

Q.O. Screw the player?

2013

Carlos Beltran

STL

NYY

1sup-29

12/??/2013

3yrs/$45M

0.9

No

2013

Robinson Cano

NYY

SEA

2-47

12/12/2013

10yrs/$240M

9.9

No

2013

Shin-Soo Choo

CIN

TEX

1-22

12/??/2013

7yrs/$130M

4.47

No

2013

Nelson Cruz

TEX

BAL

2-56

2/22/2014

1yr/$8M

-6.1

Yes

2013

Stephen Drew

BOS

unsigned

??

unsigned

unsigned

Yes

2013

Jacoby Ellsbury

BOS

NYY

1sup-30

12/13/2013

7yrs/$153M

7.76

No

2013

Curtis Granderson

NYY

NYM

2-51

12/??/13

4yrs/$60M

0.9

No

2013

Ubaldo Jimenez

CLE

BAL

1-17

2/19/2014

4yrs/$50M

-1.6

Yes

2013

Hiroki Kuroda

NYY

NYY

none

12/6/2013

1yr/$16M

1.9

No

2013

Brian McCann

ATL

NYY

1-18

12/3/2013

5yrs/$85M

2.9

No

2013

Kendrys Morales

SEA

unsigned

??

unsigned

unsigned

Yes

2013

Mike Napoli

BOS

BOS

none

12/12/2013

2yrs/$32M

1.9

No

2013

Ervin Santana

KC

ATL

1-29

3/12/2014

1yr/$14.1M

0

Yes

Similarly to 2012, there were several FAs in this class for whom the Q.O. meant nothing: Cano, Choo, Ellsbury, McCann and Kuroda. So, by my way of thinking 5 of the remaining 8 players had their contracts impacted … but two in a much more visible way:

Drew and Morales remain unsigned to this point … and its hard to envision a scenario right now where any team would sign these players until after the Rule 4 draft in early June. Why give up a draft pick at this point? On the bright side for both players, there may be a veritable bidding war for their services after the draft, and they could get decent contracts which have (by rule) no further draft pick compensation issues.

Nelson Cruz had to take a $6M pay-cut due to his not taking the Q.O., a serious miscalculation of his market by him and his agent.

You may argue whether or not Ubaldo Jimenez really got screwed here, since he got $50M guaranteed in a four year deal. But his AAV is a good 10% less than the Q.O. that he spurned form Cleveland.

You can also argue about Ervin Santana, who signed for *exactly* the Q.O. amount once Atlanta lost most of their rotation for the year. I still say he was impacted because of the amount of time it took and his subsequent service time loss to start the season.

If i’m a future veteran FA … i’d be rather worried.

So, what’s the fix? Some say that this situation will naturally just take care of itself; next off-season maybe some players will finally take the Q.O. (remember; we’ve yet to have a single player take the offer), which in turn should make some teams wary of offering them in subsequent years. But by the time this situation naturally plays itself out, it’ll be time for the next bargaining session.

I think the MLBPA needs to (in the next bargaining session) cut the cord on the link between draft picks and free agent compensation once and for all. The entire reason draft pick compensation was invented was to “help” the little guys who lost free agents to the big teams. But look at the list of the teams who are generally offering Q.O.’s to players right now: 6 of the 21 total offer’d players were from the Yankees, another 3 from Boston. Those aren’t exactly teams “in need” of being given more picks in the draft. In fact, of the 21 players who have gone through this system, by my count just THREE played for a team that I’d qualify as a “small market” (Upton from Tampa Bay, Jimenez from Cleveland and Santana from Kansas City). Every other player plays for either a major market or a successful team in a mid-sized market. How is this system “working” as per its original intent, at all??

Maybe the right way of doing things is to punish the big teams for signing FAs … but don’t allow them to “game” the system by subsequently gaining more picks back. The Yankees signed four Q.O. affected free agents this past off-season … but only really lost one draft pick thanks to them having offered up and received their own compensatory picks for the players they knew they were going to lose anyway. Why aren’t the Yankees being forced to lose their first four ROUNDS of draft picks? If you’re in the top 10 in payroll, you only can lose in the draft pick compensation game, not win.

Footnote: Yes I acknowledge that, “in the grand scheme of things” it is really difficult to feel sorrow for a player for “only” earning $8M/year when he could have signed for $14.1M. And its pretty hard to feel empathy for someone who feels slighted because he “only” got a 1-year 8 figure deal. In some ways the money figures we talk about remind me of the infamous quote from NBA player Latrell Sprewell, who turned down a contract offer of $21M on the grounds that he “needed to be able to feed his family.” For the sake of this post, lets dispense with the typical comments I see on the internet about how much money these guys are making as compared to middle-americans who struggle to get by on the median incomes for this country. Baseball players participate in an economic market just like the rest of us; it just happens to value their talents at levels measured in the tens of millions of dollars instead of the tens of thousands that us normal people are used to. For a huge, huge majority of professional baseball players, even a few seasons at the MLB minimum is all they’re ever going to see as payoff for years and years of incredibly curtailed earnings in the minors, and I’ll never consider these guys “overpaid.”

As with years past … feel free to skip this post if you don’t care about fantasy. I know for certain that reading about someone elses’s fantasy sports team can be a bit grating. But, if you do play fantasy i’m sure you’ll at least appreciate reading the selections and then looking at the team’s strength analysis at the end.

Andrelton Simmons put up what most consider the best defensive season of 2013. Photo via espn.go.com

The recent years have been a rise in all sorts of statistical analysis in the game of baseball (as we all know), and one of the more important areas of research has been the measurement and tracking of defensive metrics. The data we have at our disposal is not yet infallible, but the data has opened our eyes to the real impact that some major leaguers have on the defensive side of the ball.

We’re all quite familiar with the WAR-based arguments that have completely consumed last year’s AL MVP award voting as an example of modern statistics helping to shape the selection of a traditional award winner. However, up until 2013, the Gold Gloves remained an award that was given out without practically any consideration given to any advanced metric, and the awards have been embarassed in recent years with some amazingly inept selections. The two most laughable selections of recent memory were Rafael Palemeiro in 1999 (given a Gold Glove for his play at 1B despite the fact that he only played 28 games in the field that year) and Derek Jeter in 2010 (a year in which he posted a -5.1 UZR/150, was dead last among all 59 AL shortstops in Total Zone Total Fielding and had the selection was openly mocked by the normally staid Baseball-Reference.com website). Even the more defensible gold gloves over the past few years have been considered “wrong” by the stat-crowd, to the point where a number of national writers openly mock the awards and go out of their way to “ignore” th em.

This concerns me as a fan, and as someone who is keenly interested in the Hall of Fame merits of players. I absolutely believe that when it comes time to judge players on the whole of their careers, that individual awards such as the Gold Gloves, MVP and Cy Young awards matter. I want these awards to be relevant and properly awarded.

Two things have happened lately that give me hope:

Bill James and a varied panel of baseball writers, statisticians in the field and former players now vote on The FieldingBible awards each year. The 2013 Fielding Bible awards are not league specific; they recognize the best in the majors at each position each year.

The Gold Glove award committee for the first time in 2013 has incorporated a statistical element to the traditional surveying of players and coaches to choose the award winners.

(All winners/leaders listed below are on one common Google XLS here. Listed are the winners of the GGs, Fielding Bibles, and then the leaders in each league by position of these Defensive stats: UZR/150, DRS, FRAA, and Total Zone. I haven’t gone into the various definitions and pros/cons of these stats; I have a planned off-season defensive statistical overview post where I’ll go into greater detail).

First off, if you believe that the Fielding Bible panel has picked the best possible awardees, then you’ll be happy to note that every Fielding Bible award winner also received a Gold Glove this year. Here’s the Fielding Bible winners by position for 2013:

As you’ll see below by looking at the various defensive metrics out there, most of the Gold Glove winners were merited. In fact, there only seems to be one egregiously bad selection here (which we’ll get to below). Nearly every other winner was at the top of one or more of the advanced metrics available by position for his league:

UZR/150 leaders per league (again, with Fielding Bible winners bolded):

Pos

AL UZR/150

NL UZR/150

C

1B

Mike Napoli, BOS

Anthony Rizzo, CHC

2B

Ben Zobrist, TBR

Darwin Barney, CHC

SS

Yunel Escobar, TBR

Andrelton Simmons ATL

3B

Manny Machado, BAL

Juan Uribe, LAD

LF

David Murphy, TEX

Starling Marte, PIT

CF

Colby Rasmus, TOR

A.J. Pollack, ARI

RF

Shane Victorino, BOS

Gerardo Parra, ARI

P

Defensive Runs Saved leaders per league:

Pos

AL DRS

NL DRS

C

Salvador Perez, KC

Wellington Castillo, CHC

1B

Mike Napoli, BOS

Anthony Rizzo, CHC

2B

Dustin Pedroia, BOS

Darwin Barney, CHC

SS

Pedro Florimon, MIN

Andrelton Simmons, ATL

3B

Manny Machado, BAL

Nolan Arenado, COL

LF

Alex Gordon, KC

Starling Marte, PIT

CF

Leonys Martin, TEX

Carlos Gomez, MIL

RF

Shane Victorino, BOS

Gerardo Parra, ARI

P

FRAA Leaders per league:

Pos

AL FRAA

NL FRAA

C

1B

Eric Hosmer, KC

Paul Goldschmidt, ARI

2B

Ian Kinsler, TEX

Donovan Solano, MIA

SS

Nick Franklin, SEA

Andrelton Simmons, ATL

3B

Manny Machado, BAL

Nolan Arenado, COL

LF

Andy Dirks, DET

Carl Crawford, LAD

CF

Alejandro De Aza, CWS

Brandon Barnes, HOU

RF

Shane Victorino, BOS

Hunter Pence, SF

P

R.A. Dickey, TOR

Andrew Cashner, SD

And lastly here’s the Total Zone Total Fielding leaders:

Pos

AL Total Zone Total Fielding

NL Total Zone Total Fielding

C

Matt Wieters, BAL

Yadier Molina, STL

1B

Mike Napoli, BOS

Paul Goldschmidt, ARI

2B

Dustin Pedroia, BOS

Brandon Phillips, CIN

SS

Jayson Nix, NYY

Andrelton Simmons, ATL

3B

Manny Machado, BAL

Juan Uribe, LAD

LF

Alex Gordon, KC

Chris Heisey, CIN

CF

Jacoby Ellsbury, BOS

Denard Span, WAS

RF

Shane Victorino, BOS

Norichika Aoki, MIL

P

R.A. Dickey, TOR

Patrick Corbin, ARI

So, after looking at all these leaders, lets talk a bit about the Gold Gloves and ask ourselves whether they did a good job representing the best defenders this year. Position by position:

Catcher: Salvator Perez is as good an AL pick as any; the only other AL catcher in the mix is Matt Weiters. On the NL side, Jadier Molina has earned his reputation and backs it up on the metrics side. His only challenger being the little known Wellington Castillo from Chicago.

1st Base: Hosmer and Goldschmidt seem as good of picks as any; only Mike Napoli and Anthony Rizzo seemed close in either league. Napoli may have been a better pick than Hosmer on the weight of the evidence.

2nd Base: There’s several decent candidates who were not honored, but I don’t think anyone is arguing vehimently against either Pedroia or Phillips as the winners. Darwin Barney may be the most egreiged candidate.

Shortstop: the amazing Andrelton Simmons led every possible statistical category; there was no chance he was losing. J. J. Hardy‘s selection wasn’t bad per se, but as you can see from the above tables four different AL shortstops led each of the four statistical measures. None of them was Hardy though, making you wonder if his gold glove was slightly on reputation.

3rd Base: One day Manny Machado will move back to short (maybe) and challenge Simmons for the title of “Best Shortstop in the Game.” But for now he has to settle for easily being the best defensive 3B in the game. As with Simmons, Machado led every possible defensive measure at his position. On the NL side, the choice of Nolan Arenado was a sound one, with only Juan Uribe really challenging him. Thankfully the award didn’t go to someone like David Wright or our own Ryan Zimmerman based on reputation.

Left Field: Alex Gordon was a sound choice; the NL choice of Carlos Gonzalez may have been a disservice to one Starling Marte. However, picking individual positions for the OF is somewhat tough, especially for the corners. Fangraphs lists RF winner Gerardo Parra as a left-fielder for some reason.

Center Field: Carlos Gomez is a great pick (and is one of the reasons I posted my “Why no MVP support for Gomez” post in this space, which by the way, got almost no reaction from the readership…). Adam Jones was nearly dead last in some of these range metrics and unfortunately has gotten this award via reputation (and his arm; still one of the best) as opposed to performance. Jones is clearly the “Derek Jeter” of 2013, and the voters really erred badly on his selection. Its hard for me to say who I would have preferred; Jacoby Ellsbury is the biggest name among the four guys who led the four different defensive numbers, but Ellsbury’s arm is weak (nearly last of any CF in the league) and a better candidate would have been Leonys Martin.

Right Field: Gerardo Parra and Shane Victorino are the leading candidates for their leagues and both selections are warranted. I know that Hunter Pence led the NL in FRAA, but his arm is awful (one of the worst of any RF in the league), so that has to count against him. In fact, Victorino was as good as or better than Parra in most of these metrics (with the exception of Arm; Parra has one of the better arms in the league). I’m guessing its arm strength that tipped the Fielding Bible balance to Parra.

—

Conclusion: I think the Gold Gloves did a pretty good job in 2013 of identifying the best overall defenders at each position. With one significant exception (Adam Jones). I think its time the sportswriters who have been purposely ignoring the awards come back into the fold.

Denard Span's "best of 2012" defensive catch, highlighting more of what we can expect in 2013. Photo NYpost.com

I wasn’t expecting much baseball talk in Ask Boswell this week (12/10/12), not with the Redskins on a 4-game winning streak. But there were some significant baseball moves to discuss, and a ton of baseball questions made their way in. So here we go. As always, I read the question and answer before reading Tom Boswell‘s response, and sometimes edit questions for clarity:

Q: I find it hard to imagine any starter of worth will sign with the Nats now that there are five rotation certainties in place. Will the Nats get the starter depth they desire?

A: There is definitely a class of starter out there who absolutely would take a minor league contract with a team like the Nats in order to rehabilitate their FA value, which may have been eroded due to injury or a bad season. Who would sign Erik Bedard (as an example) to anything guaranteed right now? Or Jonathan Sanchez? I would say though that more likely is the team acquiring guys on the minor league free agent market (where there’s 100s of guys available) and trading for farm system depth (I could envision both Michael Morse and Danny Espinosa being moved for prospect depth right now). Boswell didn’t really address this part of the question, instead focusing on the next question.

Q: Why did Rizzo non-tender Gorzelanny, who as the LHP long man could spot start? He has been effective at times, the non-tender now seems like a false economy.

A: Simple econonmics; despite Tom Gorzelanny‘s salary being miniscule in the grand scheme of things, they couldn’t tender him and risk getting an un-acceptable award in arbitration. I posted on the topic ahead of the non-tender deadline. I’m hopeful that Gorzelanny re-signs with the team at something close to his 2012 salary. But, that being said the bullpen looks awfully full right now and there might not be room for him. 5 returning RH relievers, new signing Zach Duke and only one spot left, likely being filled by Bill Bray in a pure LOOGY move. Boswell points out that Duke exactly replicates what Gorzelanny would have given us at a fraction of the price. Enough said.

Q: How do you like the Denard Span acquisition versus Philly’s acquisition of Ben Revere? Should the Nats have acquired Revere instead of Span? Do the Nats have an internal CF option after Span’s contract ends?

A: I posted my opinion on the Span deal here; quick analysis: liked the Denard Span deal but didn’t like that they made it. Now, if I compare the Span to the Revere deals, I can’t help but say that I think Philadelphia overpaid, badly. Trevor May was Philly’s #1 prospect in their system. May for Revere may have been a decent deal (akin to our own Alex Meyer for Span), but throwing in a servicable starter with 46 decent MLB starts under his belt was questionable. It isn’t like Ben Revere is the second coming of Joe DiMaggio; he had a 89 OPS+ last year in his third pro season. Great defense absolutely, but at what cost at the plate? At least Span profiles as a better-than-league-average hitter. The Span contract is for 2 years, by which time the Nats have a slew of potential replacements (in likely order Goodwin, Perez, Hood, Taylor), so yes there’s plenty of rising talent in the system at center. Boswell doubts the talent of Trevor May despite the consensus scouting opinion of the player, but he likes Worley and thinks the Phillies “took a flier on talent.” He does think Span > Revere though.

Q: Have the Nats done enough to their roster to win it all? Do they need another closer?

A: I believe the team has already done enough to re-qualify for the 2013 playoffs, especially in the NL East where Miami and the Mets are reeling, barring a slate of pitching injuries. I can make a legitimate argument (tease for a future post) that the WAR improvements expected from our existing players (Strasburg, Harper, a full season of Werth, etc), plus addition by subtraction for players who hurt us last year (Nady, DeRosa, Henry Rodriguez, etc) alone will result in a better team than 2012. Do we need another closer? No, but I think one more right handed option out of the pen could help. That being said, we don’t really have any 25-man room right now given the anticipated pen. I liked last year’s Brad Lidge signing as a way to get some bullpen help, but doubt the team will do it this year. As far as Drew Storen goes, he’s a top notch reliever and does not need to be replaced. But I could see the team flipping him or Tyler Clippard as they get more expensive. Boswell says the Los Angeles acquisitions change the game, and teams like the Nats may have to re-think their approaches.

Q: What do you think of the Shields trade? Who comes out ahead? Do the Rays have enough pitching to remain AL East contenders, even after trading their No 1 starter?

A: I believe Tampa Bay fleeced Kansas City; Shields was NOT their #1 starter (David PriceJeremy Hellickson) or honestly maybe not even their #3 (Matt Moore, at least on potential). So the Rays traded a mid-rotation starter who they wanted to move anyway, along with a long-man in Wade Davis for the best prospect in the minors right now (Wil Myers), the Royal’s #1 pitching prospect (Jake Odorizzi), another high-end pitching prospect (Mike Montgomery, a former highly regarded arm), and yet another minor league player. That is just frankly ridiculous. If you had told me the trade was simply Myers for both Shields and Davis, I could have squinted and understood. But the addition of the other prospects made this a complete heist for Tampa. You don’t trade the best prospect in the minor leagues for anything less than an ACE starter. Does Tampa have enough to remain AL east contenders? Absolutely yes; this was a trade of spare parts for Tampa (akin to the Nats trading Tyler Moore and Steve Lombardozzi for some other team’s two best prospects) and they didn’t give up anything that they weren’t already planning on replacing. Dayton Moore has gone all in on this move; if the Royals do not win the division in 2013, he’s out of a job. Boswell didn’t really offer an opinion, just saying that the Rays are still stocked and noting that the price in prospects was why the Nats stayed away. Disappointed not to read an opinion on the trade.

Q: Will Harper be hitting cleanup this year and, if so, what’s your thinking on this?

A: Answer: It depends. If the team does NOT re-sign Adam LaRoche, then they have precious little left-handed hitting in the lineup, and Harper will be forced to bat somewhere in the middle of the order. Cleanup may have to be the spot. If LaRoche does come back, then the team can spread out its lefty power and continue with a similar lineup to what they used last year (going Harper-Zimmerman-LaRoche-Werth for L-R-L-R). I certainly don’t think that someone like Harper will have any issues batting clean-up in the major leagues; one thing he’s never been accused of lacking is pride. Boswell agrees with the opinion here, and then talks about just how much respect Harper earned in his rookie season.

Q: Should I be worried about our pitching depth? Our pitching was remarkably healthy this year and if that doesn’t hold true, especially with questions about Haren’s health I am not sure we can assume that will hold true this season. Don’t we need another starter or two who could eat innings if needed?

A: Yes, we have a depth issue. Especially given that we’ve traded nearly an entire AAA team worth of rotation insurance in the last two off-seasons (Milone, Peacock, Meyer, Rosenbaum all traded away or lost to rule 5 in the last two off-seasons). But Dan Haren has been remarkably durable through his career, only missing 28 games in his entire career to injury. So lets temper the whole “Haren is fragile narrative.” He’s not; he just happened to have an injury in 2012. I’m assuming, until proven otherwise, that Haren will return to his previous form and throw 220 innings. Does this mean that we weren’t lucky in 2012 and should plan for someone to get hurt in the rotation? Absolutely. I believe this is why moving either Michael Morse or Danny Espinosa for starter depth is wise. Boswell reminds the reader about Duke’s starting capability and the team’s plans for Christian Garcia. There’s also Ryan Perry. And there’s also the slew of guys who won’t get MLB jobs but who aren’t ready to hang them up who will be there for the taking. You know, guys exactly like Duke was last year 2 days before the start of the season.

Q: Don’t you think that if LaRoche was going to re-sign that he would have by now? If he goes, have the Nat’s alienated Morse?

A: No; the baseball off-season moves slowly, and few moves happen before the Winter Meetings anyway. LaRoche is right on schedule for his negotiations. Now, the team’s overt coveting of LaRoche has to have Morse pissed. I would be; clearly the team is planning for your exit on a day to day basis in the open press. Which is a real shame, because I like Morse and don’t think he did anything to warrant being treated this way. Boswell somehow thinks that this whole dance is a compliment to Morse. I don’t get it.

Q: Rizzo has a 2 year offer on the table for LaRoche, and history says he’s not likely to budge. Moreover, with other options like Morse and Moore, there’s no reason for him to. If another team needed help at 1B and was willing to give LaRoche 3 years, wouldn’t they have done so already? You’ve said all along you see the Nats and LaRoche amicably parting ways. Still see it that way?

A: Rizzo can budge on his demands. Hey; at least it isn’t a four year deal that LaRoche is demanding. I think a 2year deal with a club option for a 3rd makes a lot of sense for the team. For the player, not so much. This is LaRoche’s last chance at the free agent bonanza; he has to get the biggest contract he can. The market for LaRoche won’t completely clear until Josh Hamilton signs. While they’re not apples-to-apples comparisons, they are both lefty power hitters. If a team that wanted Hamilton doesn’t get him, they can come looking for LaRoche to fit a middle of the order lefty bat. The team still needs and wants LaRoche for two main reasons; plus defense and lefty power. They’ll take a step backwards in both categories by going with Morse at first and Moore as first guy off the bench. At the beginning of the off-season I thought LaRoche was leaving, because he’d want (and get) a 4 year deal. Now I think he may be back. Boswell now thinks LaRoche may be back and the team may give a 3rd year.

Q: I realize that the life with LaRoche is much preferred by the Nats. However, do you think there will be much of drop off in the quality of Nats play? Even without him, I have no doubt that the Nats will still win their share of games and make the playoffs (assuming the starting rotation stays relatively healthy). All starters are strike out pitchers. Offensive production should be about eqaul (though not as balanced),and Morse/Moore will probably make a few more errors. I feel like moving Zimmerman to first in 2014 and have Rendon starting at third would be the ideal way to make sure the core stays in tact.

A: I mostly agree; we’ll live without LaRoche but will be righty-heavy. Morse is healthy and has shown 30 homer capabilities in the past; why wouldn’t he do that again in 2013? It is a contract year for him after all. Meanwhile. the “save first base for Ryan Zimmerman” plan is one I’m 100% for; we’re just waiting for Anthony Rendon to show up. Boswell cautions to temper expectations for Rendon, who hasn’t had an injury-free season in years.

Q: Why does Shane Victorino get a 3 year deal before Adam LaRoche?

A: Because the Red Sox made a rash, poor signing? The LaRoche market just hasn’t played out yet. Plus, filling a first baseman versus a corner outfielder is more risky for teams, so they do more due diligence. Boswell doesn’t like the Victorino deal. At all.

Q: Michael Young had the lowest WAR of ANY position player last year, do you really think he’s an upgrade for the Phillies? Personally, I can’t wait for those fans to start booing him 2 weeks into the season.

A: Yes, Michael Young looked pretty bad statistically last year. But i’m guessing that a change of scenery may help him. Texas has spent the past several seasons acquiring players to overtly replace Young; the year after he won a gold glove at short the team asked him to make way for Elvis Andrus and he moved to third. Then the team moved him off of third when they acquired Adrian Beltre. Then the team moved him to first … but then gave most of the starts at first to Mitch Moreland Maybe his 2012 was just pure disappointment in his treatment by the club where he’d played his entire career. I think though that at his age (36 next year) he’ll be lucky to be just replacement level. Boswell states the obvious; the Phillies are hoping for the 2011 version of Young, not the 2012 version.

The Rule 5 draft is being held on December 6th, 2012 at the annual Baseball Winter meetings. Frequent readers of this and other Nats blogs are well aware of the Rule 5 draft; the Nats have been frequent participants in the Rule 5 draft process, somewhat to the ire of other teams (who I suspect lately have been “returning the favor” by taking players from us and sitting on them for a year, as mentioned below).

Most scouting pundits bemoan the changes made to the CBA, saying it gutted the Rule 5 draft, but it has still featured some pretty significant names even in recent years. Guys like Dan Uggla, Johan Santana, Shane Victorino, Joakim Soria, Josh Hamilton, RA Dickey, Scott Diamond and Evan Meek are all example draft picks from the past few years. So I believe the draft is still important and can lead to significant players changing hands.

I split this post into two parts: Below we’ll review the Nats Rule 5 draft history. Then in Part II tomorrow we’ll talk about our own possible rule 5 players warranting protection, and then talk about what the Nats may be looking for in 2012’s rule 5 draft.

Part I. Nationals Rule-5 draft history

Baseball-reference (of course) has Rule 5 draft results from recent years. Here’s a list of the Rule 5 drafts since 2005, with our players taken/received noted and with some thoughts on how the player turned out for either side. Note i’m only doing this analysis for the major league section of the rule 5 draft; there’s just far too little eventual MLB success to be found in the AAA and AA sections of the Rule 5 draft to do the analysis.

Tony Blanco: 1B; Drafted from Cincinnati. He batted .177 as a 1st baseman backup while eating a roster spot all season, then we cut him from AAA after 2007. He kicked around Colorado’s system for a year and has been playing in Japan ever since. Verdict: failure.

Tyrell Godwin: CF, Drafted from Toronto. Prior to the 2005 season, the team traded another minor leaguer to keep his rights, so this really played out less like a rule-5 pickup in that Godwin didn’t have to stick on the 25-man roster all year. He played a grand total of 3 games for the Nats, kicked around AAA for a while an hung them up in 2007. Verdict: failure.

The Nats did not draft anyone, but had a player drafted themselves who went on a whirlwind tour of MLB organizations before getting returned mid 2006. Chris Booker was rule-5 drafted by Detroit, who immediately sold him to Philadelphia, who then waived him in May of 2006 with the intent of returning him … except that Kansas City picked him up, hung onto him for a couple months and eventually returned him to Washington. The Nats eventually called him up but he was relatively ineffective and he washed out of the game (likely due to injuries) after 2008.

Jesus Flores, C, drafted from the New York Mets, stuck with the team all year despite having only played high-A ball in the minors. Despite his downslide and injury issues, Flores remains the hopeful “found gold” prospect that can be had in the Rule 5 draft. Verdict: success.

Levale Speigner RHP (a closer) was drafted from Minnesota and, as with Booker above, eventually was traded for by the Nats so they could keep him and stash him in the minors. After some awful outings for the big team, he passed through waivers mid 2008 and was released from AAA in 2008, bounced around a couple other organizations, and retired after 2010. Verdict: failure.

The Nats lost one player in this draft: Alejandro Machada was drafted by Minnesota just a month after the Nats had re-signed him to a minor league contract. So Machada didn’t have to stay on their active roster. And indeed he didn’t; he was injured all of 2007 and stayed with Minnesota’s AAA team until 2009, never again broaching the majors.

Matt Whitney: 1B/3B, Drafted and then eventually returned back to Cleveland, who eventually made the former 1st rounder a ML free agent and we signed him after the 08 season. We cut him after the 2009 season and he retired after 2010. Verdict: failure.

Garrett Guzman: LF/RF: after Rule-5 selecting him, the team eventually traded a PTBNL for him to Minnesota, then we cut him outright and nobody picked him up. He played two years of Independent ball and is out of baseball after 2010. Guzman is more infamously known as the player who was caught having sex with an underage girl while playing for our AA team in Harrisburg in 2008, likely the reason why nobody picked him up after his DFA. Verdict: failure.

Terrell Young: Drafted with the #1 pick in the Rule 5 draft from Cincinnati. He got hurt, never played for us, and was eventually returned to the Reds. His injury was severe enough that he was out of baseball after being drafted; he has no professional games after 2008. Verdict: failure.

Jamie Hoffman; OF, Drafted with the #1 pick in the Rule 5 draft from Los Angeles Dodgers and immediately traded for Brian Bruney in a pre-arranged deal. NY returned him to the Dodgers later that spring. Bruney, meanwhile, immediately went to arbitration and lost with the team in the spring of 2010, was awful out of the gate, and the team outright released him before the end of May. Verdict: failure, all the way around this transaction.

Zech Zinicola was drafted away from us by Toronto, who eventually returned him to the Nats without any Toronto appearances. His selection was probably due to Dana Brown‘s recent hiring in Toronto, going from Washington’s Scouting Director to being a special assistant to the GM in Toronto. Zinicola remains in our farm system to this day and likely is nothing more than an organizational arm.

Elvin Ramirez RH reliever, drafted from the New York Mets: he was injured in spring training and spent the entirety of the season on the DL. Interestingly, the team returned him to New York in October, long before they needed to, and with New York this year he made his way to the majors for some appearances. If the team drafted him, why not keep him through spring training of 2012 to see if he was worth keeping? It just seemed odd to give up on the draft pick while procedurally you could still keep him. Verdict: failure.

Brian Broderick, RH Starting Pitcher, Drafted from St. Louis and stuck into the 2011’s bullpen as the long-man/mop-up guy. He was awful, he was costing the team, and was eventually returned to St. Louis before May was out. However, St. Louis waived him towards the end of last season and we picked him back up, so he sits on our AA roster now. I project him to be one of our AAA starters in 2013. Verdict: failure.

The Phillies drafted Michael Martinez away from the Nats, and he’s stuck on their roster both in 2011 and 2012 as a backup middle infielder. His batting lines are awful though, and the Nats clearly have depth at middle infield, so losing this player was not that big of a deal.

The Nats did not take anyone for the first time in years, but had two players themselves taken. Neither player drafted was a surprise; I posted at the time that I thought both these players should have been protected. Brad Meyers (RH starting pitcher) was drafted by the New York Yankees, but he suffered an injury in spring training and was DL’d all year. He was recently returned to the franchise and looks set to be in our AAA rotation in 2013. I think Meyers is a right-handed version of Tommy Milone and could feature for the big club in a pinch, but isn’t the big-time power arm that the team is looking for in a 5th starter.

Erik Komatsu was drafted by St. Louis (possibly in retaliation for our taking Broderick the previous year), made their 2012 opening day roster, played for a while before being waived, got picked up by Minnesota, and by Memorial day was returned to Washington in a whirlwind set of transactions. I think he remains a minor league caliber player, with too little offense for a corner outfield position but not enough speed to play center. He likely features in Syracuse’s outfield in 2013.

Summary: we’ve drafted 10 guys in the rule 5 draft since 2005, and I’d classify 9 of the 10 draftees as eventual failures. Not a great track record. Plus its safe to say that every player drafted FROM us has been a failure as well (the one exception perhaps being Martinez). Clearly the Rule 5 draft isn’t a great way to reliably find players.

(editor’s note: this post started with an email conversation amongst friends, where the Phillies fan amongst us didn’t think Rollin’s steal was “bad baseball.”)

The Giants and Phillies mixed it up in Friday 8/5’s game, a 9-2 victory (box/gamer) for Philadelphia that featured some “unwritten rule” discussion over the actions of Jimmy Rollins and subsequently Giant’s reliever Ramon Ramirez.

Here was the situation: the Phillies had just scored 2 runs to extend their lead to 8-2 in the top of the 6th inning. The Giant’s starter Jonathan Sanchez had been knocked out of the game, and reliever Ramirez gave up a 2-run scoring single to Rollins. Rollins promptly stole second base, and the next pitch plunked batter Shane Victorino.

Honestly, I believe it was a deserving retaliation by Ramirez and/or the Giants. Stealing with a lead is a sliding scale; had Rollins done it in the 2nd inning with a 3-run lead it wouldn’t have gone punished, but the 6th is iffy with a 6 run lead. Essentially, when the game appears to be out of reach, major leaguers have a tendency to just “play out the string” and expect this “conceding behavior” to be matched by the winning team. Having been on both sides of many blowouts, there’s definitively a list of things you don’t do with a massive lead. Steals and bunts are definitely out. Curtailing aggressive play (taking extra bases, take-out slides, etc), swinging at 3-0 pitches and swinging out of your ass trying to hit homers are all examples of no-nos. Certainly admiring homers and showing up a pitcher is a no-no, at nearly any point in the game (the Weaver incident earlier this week).

My Phillies friend apologist countered that the game was still close enough, that the Giants still had 4 at-bats, and the steal (though borderline) was justified.

Here’s some stats on the Giant’s offense and their capabilities of coming back, courtesy of baseball-reference.com:

The Giants are 0-8 when giving up 8 or more runs in a game.

They’re 12-26 when trailing after the 5th, no matter how many runs they’re down. And,

The largest comeback they’ve had all season in being behind 4 runs.

I’d like to find some stats on how often baseball teams make up X-run leads, but my google skills are failing me. I’m pretty certain though that the likelihood of making up 6 run deficits is pretty slim. Tom Boswell has done research that shows that about half of all baseball victories feature more runs scored by the winning team in ONE inning than the loser scores the entire game (his “Big Bang” theory, based on his own research). Sure enough, the Phillies scored more runs in the 5th inning (four) than the Giants did the entire game (two).

For me, the play was bush league, broke the unwritten rules of showing up your competitors and/or running up the score, and the retaliation was not only deserved but expected.

Here’s Boswell’s 7/5/11 chat. As always, I read the question, write my own answer then interpret Boswell’s answer. All questions are paraphrased from the chatroom for clarity here.

Q: Should the Nats move Espinosa to Short, making room for Rendon?

A: I believe the Nats may eventually consider moving Danny Espinosa to shortstop to make way for either Anthony Rendon but perhaps Steve Lombardozzi in the near future. For the beginning of 2012 season? I doubt it. Yes, Ian Desmond has been hitting ridiculously badly, but he’s a plus defender at Short with an absolute gun of an arm. He’s cut way down on errors and mental mistakes. We all believe Espinosa can handle the position (he was a grade-A short stop at Long Beach State), but the right answer may be to give Desmond one more full season before pulling the trigger. Any move would be done in a spring training presumably. (Boswell more or less agrees, saying Lombardozzi will be a full time MLBer, Desmond moves too much in the box, and that Espinosa has better hands but not as much range).

Q: Did Harper skip high-A because of Potomac’s field situation?

A: Great question. Personally I believe Potomac’s field disaster factored into the situation. Perhaps part protection of Bryce Harper (who was promoted to AA over the weekend and went 2/3 in his AA debut), part penalization of the ownership/management of the Potomac franchise (which they must believe has botched this badly, to be giving away home dates). Of course there is the plain fact that Harper, despite his young age, held his own against AA-calibre talent and higher in 2010’s Arizona Fall League and he may just be ready for AA. (Boswell punts on the question, quoting Rizzo who said “the field is fine, it had nothing to do with it.” A non-answer.)

A: I’ll say slim, based on who he’s up against (here’s a link to the voting). Ethier, Helton, Victorino, and Ian Kennedy are the candidates. I’d guess that either Victorino or Helton wins, though Ethier is a deserving candidate. Nobody’s heard of Michael Morse unfortunately. (Boswell thinks Philly fans will vote in Victorino).

Q: Is Ryan Zimmerman’s new throwing motion working?

A: It seems not; if anything its causing even more problems. Zimmerman used to make most of his errors on relatively routine throws over to first; if he’s making a throw under duress it is usually spot on. So the new motion is designed to remove the scatter-arm throws. But now, instead of making a routine throw and it getting into his head, he’s got this new motion into his head. I can’t see how its an improvement. For me when playing the answer was always to go to a side arm motion to gain accuracy but I was playing from middle-infield positions that didn’t require long, overhand throws like what the third baseman has to do. (Boswell thinks it is working and that Zimmerman needs a bit longer to get comfortable with it).

Q: Was it too early, too late or the right time to promote Harper?

A: From a productivity standpoint it was probably too late; he clearly owned how-A pitching after just a few weeks. But, from a “learning how to be a baseball player” standpoint its just right. Finish out a half, a playoff-run, get a bunch of road trips in and get used to playing day after day. Now he can move up and get challenged by better pitching. Personally I would have put him in high-A for an incremental improvement. Run him up to AA if he dominated in Potomac, else start him at AA next year with an eye to move him quickly to AAA. I think there’s value in growing into your role. (Boswell says it was the right time to promote, but not to which level, and then compares Harper’s minor league splits to A-Rods and Ken Griffey Jr’s).

Q: How much credit should we give Rizzo the GM for 4 specific moves that paid off (Ramos-Capps, Willingham trade, letting Dunn walk and failing to get Greinke)?

A: I give Rizzo some good, some bad for his moves over the past year or so. The Ramos for Capps trade was spectacular. The Guzman trade (something for nothing) was quality. His purchase of Bixler has turned out well. I think we got fleeced on the Willingham deal frankly and think this team could have used the offense. Dunn was never going to stay here so I don’t know how much credit you can give Rizzo for purposely picking up the draft picks. He overpaid badly for Werth (for reasons that have been discussed ad-naseum here and were bigger than just the player). I liked the acquisition of Gorzelanny for what we gave up. His two rule5 draft picks were garbage. Cora and Nix on minor league contracts has turned out great. He got a decent AA starter for Gonzalez but a middling low-A infielder for Morgan. He wanted and was going to pay for Greinke, who i think is vastly over-rated, had one good season and is by no means an “ace” in this league. He’s a solid guy but not a $100m pitcher. (Boswell points out the Hanrahan-Burnett deal is looking bad for the Nats; I’ll defend the Nats there since Hanrahan was SO bad for us. Boswell also mentions Aaron Crow for some reason; that non-signing was 110% on Bowden, not Rizzo).

Q: Are Nats buyers or sellers at the trade deadline?

A: This answer will vary day by day between now and 7/31 honestly. If the Nats go on a 5 game losing streak they’re selling like mad. Right this moment, they’re probably doing nothing, stuck into inactivity by virtue of their .500 record and proximity to the wild card race. (Boswell agrees, saying the team’s record on July 28th is what matters).

Q: Will the Nats over pay and sign Marquis and Livan for next season?

A: God I hope not. Marquis should be jettisoned to make way for Strasburg’s return. Livan is worth 1.5-2m/per, but not much more. If he demands more cut him loose. Livan at this point is merely a holding over pitcher until our farm system prospects pan out. (Boswell seems to think that Detwiler could make an able replacement for Marquis, either this August/September or later on).

Q: Is Werth unable to get around on fastballs?

A: I don’t have enough video evidence to offer an opinion. Boswell says he’s just trying too hard, his mechanics are out of whack.

Q: Thoughts on the all-star rosters?

A: Havn’t even looked at them. Looking them up to comment here. Don’t care really; the all-star rosters will always have too many Red Sox, too many Yankees and too many Asians from ballot-box stuffing. I can’t stand the “every team must be represented” issue, which dilites the team and gives players cheap all star appearances. I think the fact that the world series home field advantage depends on this exhibition is beyond ridiculous. So doing a 2500 word column nit picking the all-star selections is just July column filler for most baseball writers. For me its like complaining about the BCS: its never going to change. Let other people bitch about the fact that Derek Jeter has basically been awful this year, not the best.

I will say that the manager’s selecting the pitchers is ridiculous. Yes Vogelsong has had a great season but he’s not who the fans want to see in the all star game, nor is he one of the best 15 pitchers in the league. Picking middle relievers? Ridiculous as well.

(Boswell says he likes the rosters and won’t waste an answer on what could give him an easy column!)

Q: How much money is Pujols’ injury- and poor-performance season costing him? Would he take a 1-year deal to regain value?
A: Great question. I think Pujols poor season has already cost him a shot at a 10-yr/$300M contract that many spoke of. He’s clearly going to lose years and value. I think he deserves a 7yr deal that pays him more per-annum than A-rod, and it may be what he’s shooting for. I do not think he’ll take a one-year deal. Too much can go wrong, too risky. Even if he doesn’t get the years and money he seeks, you cannot blow the opportunity to guarantee hundreds of millions of dollars. (Boswell wouldn’t even give him 7 years right now).

Q: Could Lombardozzi come up and force a replacement of Desmond in 2011?

A: No way. There’s little value in yanking Desmond in mid-august, forcing Espinosa to move to shortstop with no work all year and possibly disrupt a Rookie-of-the-Year season AND do the 40-man move to add Lombardozzi just for a few games in the bigs. (Boswell answered by defending Desmond, calling him a 10-year career shortstop. He needs to start hitting though).

Q: Comments on the Soriano “hit” that scored 2 runs?

A: An official scorer just can’t give Bernadina an error on a ball that drops in front of him, despite it clearly being a fielding mistake. Its one more piece of evidence showing how inaccurate ERAs are for pitchers. Zimmermann had Soriano popped up and was out of the inning; suddenly he’s given up 2 earned runs that he didn’t deserve. To me, it looked like Bernadina lost the ball in the over-cast sky. (Boswell points out that the play perfectly encapsulates why the team doesn’t think Bernadina is the long term answer in center. Well, duh, I could have told you that was the case long before this play!)

Q: Why aren’t the Nats hitting?/How much accountability does Rick Eckstein have in this situation?

A: Honestly, I’ve never thought that a hitting coach really could impact what a major leaguer could do. Be it out of respect, or lack thereof. If everyone thinks Werth’s mechanics are out of whack, why hasn’t he fixed them? Its an easy video fix right?

Werth is trying too hard. Espinosa’s babip is awful. Desmond just isn’t that good. Morse is good but has holes that pundits/scouts like Keith Law think are going to get exposed. Zimmerman is just getting back in the saddle. Willingham and Dunn (despite what they’re doing in 2010) were stable, high OBP forces in this lineup and when they left, there was major disruption. LaRoche has always been a slow starter, complicated (as we eventually found out) by a bad shoulder injury. (Boswell ducked the question as I have, but gives some interesting analysis of just how not-so-bad the team really is offensively right now).

A: Morgan needed a change of scenery, and has taken advantage of it. Same goes for Hanrahan, and in that respect that trade has worked out well for Pittsburgh. Kearns never wanted to be traded here; he is from Kentucky and liked it in Cincinnati. Once he got his balloon payment here he never earned the contract. Lopez is a special case; a good player with an awful attitude, and he’s earned a one-way ticket out of several towns by now. I wouldn’t put Werth in any of these classes; he’s hard-nosed, plays hard, doesn’t play dirty, doesn’t show-boat, and takes his craft seriously. (Boswell just says that change of scenery is sometimes good, without throwing (especially) Lopez under the bus).

Q: Why is Sean Burnett still on the roster?

A: True, his 2011 numbers have been pretty bad. But one really bad game can make 3 weeks worth of good look awful. Look at his game logs; he’s been pretty good lately except for one or two blow ups. The team needs a loogy, Burnett actually gives them more than just a one-out guy, and he was pretty good last year. Way too early to give up on him, to say nothing of the fact that there’s very little in AAA or even AA to replace him. We’re still trying to replace our actual LOOGY Slaten, signing JC Romero and possibly looking at Severino or even Chico at some point. (Boswell agrees).

Q: What are we going to do with Rendon?

A: Wait for him to prove he belongs, then find a spot. He hasn’t signed yet, could get injured again and be a total bust, or he could hit like the 2nd coming of Alex Rodriguez in the minors and shoot up to earn MLB at bats inside a year. If he forces his way onto the roster then you make room for him. Install him at 2nd, move Espinosa to short. Or, put Rendon in left and keep your current MI. Maybe Zimmerman wants out of town after 2013 and Rendon naturally moves to third. Maybe the entire team gets hit by a bus and we start over from scratch. Way too much can happen with minor league prospects to make intelligent predictions til they get to AAA. (Boswell’s answer rambled on about the state of the team … saying we’re much further along than intimated in the question).

Q: Why are the crowds booing Jayson Werth?

A: Probably because he’s in an extended slump, combined with a massive paycheck that most of us now have been told is vastly over-paying him. Nobody likes it when an overpaid co-worker struggles with his assignments; it makes you really question why you’re working at that job in the first place. Trust me, if he starts hitting the boo-ing will stop. (Boswell kinda understands the crowd’s displeasure with Werth right now).

Q: Is Werth miscast as a team leader?

A: Perhaps. I think clearly in Philadelphia he was one of many hitting cogs in a powerful lineup and they covered for each other. Now, he’s much more in focus (especially with LaRoche’s issues and Zimmerman’s absence). However, does he HAVE to be a leader by virtue of his contract? No. Zimmerman is a natural leader, as is Desmond. We have veteran pitching that can take the media brunt. But lets be honest; we don’t live in NYC with a 24-hour yankees news cycle. There’s, what, 5 beat reporters in total for this team (Ladson, Goessling, Kilgore, Zuckerman and Comack), so that’s not a ton of people asking you questions night after night. (Boswell agrees, Werth doesn’t have good media presence).

Q: Did the Lerner’s err in naming Davey Johnson as the new manager?

A: Can’t say just quite yet. Johnson was clearly an excellent manager in his time. Has the game passed him by? Unlike in professional football, where clearly Joe Gibbs was exposed as being too old and too out of touch with the modern game during his return to the sidelines for the Washington Redskins, Baseball strategy and management moves at a slower pace. Since Johnson last managed, there are no major changes in the rules of the game or the basic strategy. If anything, the major change in the game lies in the renewed emphasis on defense and pitching in the steroid-less game. Statistics and analysis has vastly increased in importance, but Johnson was already ahead of the curve in those departments when he was managing (and he was a Math major to boot, meaning he should not be wary of such heavy numerical analysis in the sport). That all being said, only time will tell. What was the team lacking under Riggleman that Johnson can bring to the table? Perhaps the answer is basic; accomplishment and veteran respect. (Boswell ridiculed the question and picked at its points, as opposed to talking about what Johnson may bring to the table).

Q: Do the Nationals ushers need to do more to enforce fan etiquette at the stadium?

A: Probably. The questioner complains about people being allowed to move freely mid-inning. I don’t notice a ton while I go to games, because our season tickets are relatively close to the field and the movement here and there isn’t too bad to notice. We did experience a rather concerning issue on 7/4; we apparently had duplicate tickets to others that we found sitting in our seats. We never really asked to see the tickets in question (not wanting to irk the woman sitting in our seats, who was clearly combative). But the usher mentioned that the day before he saw no less than FOUR tickets issued for the same seat. That doesn’t make any sense to me really; the seats are all season ticket-owned seats in the 100 sections. Something weird is going on. (Boswell says the questioner makes good sense).

Talk about a shock. Everyone in the baseball world had Cliff Lee going to the Yankees (with a small minority believing that the lack of income taxes in Texas would keep him with the Rangers). Now, news has broken that Lee is returning to the Phillies in a relatively affordable deal (all things considered). 5years, $120 (average annual value of $24M) with a 6th year easily attained. He turned down longer deals from New York (reportedly 6years $132M with a 7th year player option at $16M) and Texas (a similar 6year deal with player option for 7th) to return to Philly, where he really enjoyed the clubhouse culture and the city.

The Phillies are *really* stacked. A rotation where Roy Oswalt is your 4th starter?? That’s sick. Though they’ll probably line up the rotation to go R-L (Halladay, Lee, Oswalt, Hamels). Their 5th starter is now either Blanton or Kendrick, meaning they have spare parts to trade to teams needing pitching.

Lee joins a team that won 97 games last year and significantly improves the rotation. Does this mean the Phillies are on their way to 105-106 wins? Perhaps; Lee is such an upgrade over the starter he’s basically replacing in the rotation (Jamie Moyer), but the Phillies have lost Jayson Werth in the middle of their order. Ibanez isn’t getting any younger and its no guarantee super-stud prospect Dominic Brown can provide the offensive replacement they need. But, baseball is becoming a pitcher’s game and the Phillies just bought the biggest arm out there.

Phillies GM Ruben Amaro re-acquires the same guy he mortgaged his upper farm system for two years ago. Only this time for no prospects lost (just his 1st round draft pick). I know that nobody will be saying this, but clearly the return of Lee means that the Phillies screwed up royally by letting him go in the first place. Luckily nobody will care as long as they’re still winning, still making the playoffs and still competing for the world series. And, in the end it may not matter because reports from scouts say that the Phillies lower farm teams (rookie and low-A) are stacked with talent and the team will naturally replace some of these aging free agents (guys like Polanco, Ibanez, perhaps even Victorino) with cheaper alternatives and keep payroll in check.

The Yankees are in seriously big trouble. Their entire off-season depended on upgrading a very vulnerable rotation with Lee. Right now their rotation has one sure thing (Sabathia), one retirement question mark (Pettitte), one promising rookie with little track record (Hughes), one possible massive FA bust (Burnett) and … who knows? I don’t think a trade for Greinke or Garza is possible for the Yankees; Greinke may not be the best fit in NY and Tampa may not be wise to trade Garza intra-division. Plus, do the Yankees even have prospects worthy of tempting these two teams? Joe Lemire posted very similar thoughts to mine vis-a-vis the yankees today as well.

Lee’s contract, tacked onto the massive contracts for Howard and Halladay may very well serve as a boat anchor for this team in a few years. I’ve posted in the past about free agent pitcher contract values and clearly a $24M/year AAV is going to be incredibly difficult to earn. Even if Lee wins 20 games in every season of the contract the Philles are still not getting good value on their money. Cot’s site isn’t fully updated for even Howard’s extension but the Phillies right now have about $80M committed in 2013 to FOUR players (Howard at $20M, Halladay $20M, Lee $24M and Utley $15M). That’s not exactly a lot of flexibility of one of those guys gets badly injured.

Since this is a Nats blog, how does this affect us? Besides the obvious (the Phillies clearly will be that much more tough to beat for a divisional title for the next few years), this move means the Nats may have a much tougher time acquiring Greinke or Garza. Both Texas and New York now will bet the farm on those two starters, and the Nats will not be willing to match the prospect drain that Kansas City and Tampa Bay (respectively) will be demanding in return.

And lastly the really obvious; competing in the NL East just got that much harder for this team. If the Phillies are going to act like the Yankees in acquiring high-end FA an Payroll … the Lerners better start acting more like Boston and less like Baltimore. $60M in payroll isn’t going to cut it anymore; try $120M. The Werth signing in many ways seemed like a desperation signing, a quick attempt to regain some fan interest in this town and offset the loss of Adam Dunn. But Werth alone isn’t going to help this team. We need more hitting, better pitching, better players. Honestly we really just need time to get our high-end prospects though the system … but can we wait until 2013 to compete?

The team is entering its 7th year in Washington, a team notorious for NOT supporting its professional teams unless they’re successful. Baseball isn’t like football, where national TV contracts and salary caps essentially mean a team can compete equally whether they’re in New York or Kalamazoo. In baseball you have to generate your own revenue and make your own luck. You have to spend money or spend time (and risk alienating the entire fan base) while getting better. For the Nats, who wasted 3 years of good will and a brand new stadium being stingy and thinking that the product on the field didn’t matter … they have no choice. They need to be successful NOW to stem the flow of season ticket cancellations and attempt to be relevant in this town.